Google Directory DMOZ.org Shuts Down Permanently after 18 Years

Posted ON 22 Mar

Google Directory DMOZ that organizes websites using human efforts is no longer available from March 14th, 2017. The mechanism involved human efforts rather machine has been permanently closed after 18 years. It used hierarchical ontology for organizing site listing and was considered to be the largest human-edited web directory that was managed by a group of volunteer editors.

The announcement came via a notice on the website, which says “As of Mar 17, 2017, dmoz.org is no longer available.” However, people who would like to be in touch with the DMOZ community can visit www.resource-zone.com.

DMOZ History

It was in the year 1998 when the website came into existence by the name Gnuhoo and was soon renamed to Newhoo. Initially, it was Rick Skrenta and Bob Truel who founded DMOZ and was later joined by Chris Tolles, all working with Sun Microsystems at that time. The directory went live on June 5, 1998. However, it was again renamed to Netscape Open Directory after being acquired by Netscape. Soon Netscape was acquired by AOL and it was the time when their competitors like Google began making their presence felt. Moreover, as the technology got advanced, people started believing more in machine-based outcomes. The computer generated algorithms proved to be more efficient and processed large data in less time with minimal error.

As the people got more inclined towards computer-generated outcomes, DMOZ popularity started to fade away. With the passage of time, people started believing that DMOZ wasn’t good enough in fulfilling the requests. Moreover, because of the shortage of staff it was poorly maintained and rarely updated. Slowly, it was forgotten by researchers and marketers.